Christiane Taubira | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Taubira in January 2016 | |
| Minister of Justice | |
| In office 16 May 2012 – 27 January 2016 | |
| Prime Minister | Jean-Marc Ayrault Manuel Valls |
| Preceded by | Michel Mercier |
| Succeeded by | Jean-Jacques Urvoas |
| Regional Councillor of French Guiana | |
| In office 26 March 2010 – 31 August 2012 | |
| President | Rodolphe Alexandre |
| Member of theNational Assembly forFrench Guiana's1st constituency | |
| In office 2 April 1993 – 16 June 2012 | |
| Preceded by | Élie Castor |
| Succeeded by | Gabriel Serville |
| Member of the European Parliament | |
| In office 19 July 1994 – 19 July 1999 | |
| Constituency | France |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Christiane Marie Taubira (1952-02-02)2 February 1952 (age 73) |
| Political party | Walwari |
| Other political affiliations | Radical Party of the Left |
| Children | 4 |
| Relatives | Jean-Marie Taubira (brother) |
| Alma mater | Panthéon-Assas University Paris-Sorbonne University |
| Signature |  |
Christiane Marie Taubira (French:[kʁistjanmaʁitobiʁa]; born 2 February 1952) is a French politician who served asMinister of Justice of France in the governments ofPrime MinistersJean-Marc Ayrault andManuel Valls under PresidentFrançois Hollande from 2012 until 2016.[1] She was amember of theNational Assembly of France forFrench Guiana from 1993 to 2012 andmember of theEuropean Parliament from 1994 to 1999.
She won the2022 French People's Primary, winning the right to stand as a "unity left" candidate in the2022 French presidential election.[2] It was her second bid after the2002 French presidential election where she failed to qualify to the second round after garnering only 2.32% of the votes in the first round. She dropped out of the race on 2 March 2022 after failing to get enough support to qualify.[3]
Taubira was born on 2 February 1952 inCayenne,French Guiana,France, as one of 11 siblings and raised by a single mother.[4] Among others, she is the sister of French politicianJean-Marie Taubira, Secretary General of theGuianese Progressive Party.
Taubira studiedeconomics atPanthéon-Assas University,African Americanethnology,sociology atParis-Sorbonne University andfood industry at the French Center for Agricultural Cooperation.[5][6]
Having served as President of theWalwari Party, Taubira from1993 served as a Deputy to theFrench National Assembly, being re-elected in1997. Non-affiliated in 1993, she then voted in favour of the conservativePrime Minister Edouard Balladur to form aCabinet of ministers in 1993.
In the1994 European elections Taubira became aMember of the European Parliament (MEP),[7][8] being the fourth on theÉnergie Radicale list led byBernard Tapie. In parliament, she served on theCommittee on Development (1994–1997) and theCommittee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media (1997–1999). In addition to her committee assignments, she was part of the parliament's delegation for relations with the countries of South America.[9]
In June 1997 Taubira joined theSocialist Party (PS), and then-Prime MinisterLionel Jospin appointed her to head a government commission intogold mining inGuiana.[citation needed]
Taubira was the driving force behind a 21 May 2001 law that recognised theAtlantic slave trade andslavery as acrime against humanity.[10]
In 2002 Taubira was aLeft Radical Party (PRG)candidate for the Presidency although she did not belong to the Party; she won 2.32% of the votes. After 2002 she became the party's vice-president. She was elected as its Deputy in the2002 elections and chose to join the Socialists'group in the Assembly.
In the Socialist Party's2011 primaries, Taubira endorsedArnaud Montebourg as the party's candidate for the2012 presidential election.[11]
In addition to her work in national politics Taubira served as a Regional Councillor ofFrench Guiana from 2010 until 2012.
Taubira was nominatedMinister of Justice byPrime MinisterJean-Marc Ayrault, following the victory ofFrançois Hollande in the2012 elections. At the time, she was one of the few black, female politicians within a prominent ministry in the French government.[12] She soon emerged as one of the most outspoken and progressive voices in the government.[12]
Taubira was initially supposed to work with Junior MinisterDelphine Batho. However, their relationship quickly broke down being unable to share responsibilities. After the June 2012 Legislative elections, Batho was moved to become Minister of Ecology replacingNicole Bricq, leaving Taubira in charge of the Ministry of Justice. She resigned her position as Minister of Justice on 27 January 2016 after a disagreement with President Hollande over policies related to the treatment of French Nationals convicted of terrorism.[13]
In 2013, Taubira voiced her support for land reforms in France's Caribbean territories as compensation for slavery.[14] She also formally implemented an important electoral promise ofFrançois Hollande[15] and introducedLaw 2013-404, which legalisedsame-sex marriage in France.
In 2014 Taubira successfully defied opposition parties' calls for her to quit after it emerged that she knew formerPresidentNicolas Sarkozy's phone was being tapped, apparently contradicting an earlier statement from her.[16] She reportedly considered resigning in August 2014, along with other left-wing cabinet members such asArnaud Montebourg, in protest against Hollande's economic policies.[17]
Taubira resigned in January 2016 after openly disagreeing with the French president's proposal to strip French nationality from dual-citizens convicted of terrorism, a measure championed by Hollande in the wake ofthe terrorist attacks that shook Paris on 13 November;[13]Minister of the Interior Manuel Valls had taken charge of the constitutional reform draft law, which would normally have been part of her portfolio.[18] One week later, she publishedMurmures à la jeunesse, a book about this proposal.[19]
Despite being urged to join the race by supporters, Taubira chose not to run in the Socialist Party's2017 presidential primary,[20] and remained neutral in the contest; following his nomination Taubira later endorsedBenoît Hamon as the party's candidate for the2017 French presidential election.[21] In the second round of the presidential election she called on voters to rally behindEmmanuel Macron.[22]
Taubira formally announced her candidacy for the2022 presidential election in January 2022[23] and won the "people's primary" intended to select a consensus left-wing candidate.[24] By March 2022, theConstitutional Council published data showing Taubira had failed to win enough endorsements from elected officials to qualify for the presidential election.[25]
Taubira is a vocal critic of illegal immigration toFrench Guiana. In 2007 Taubira stated that "We are at an identity turning point. The ethnicGuyanese have become a minority on their own land" as a result of illegal immigration.[26][27] In recent years Taubira has called for solidarity withrefugees inMetropolitan France.[28]
Like otherfemale ministers [fr], Taubira has faced many racist and sexist insults.[29]
Taubira allowed the Guyanese political partyWalwari to make a direct citation in the Cayenne criminal court againstAnne-Sophie Leclère, a candidate for theFront National who in October 2013 shared a racist cartoon comparing Taubira to amonkey on herFacebook page. Leclère was sentenced to nine months in prison and five years of ineligibility by the court before the judgement was quashed on appeal as Walwari's actions were deemed invalid.[30]
In September 2016, the Paris criminal court, which had opened an investigation when the facts were revealed, found Leclère guilty of the crime of public insult and sentenced her to a suspended fine of 3,000 euros.
In November 2013, the Office of theUnited Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the comments, which it considered as racist attacks against Taubira, in particular those on the cover of the extreme right-wing weeklyMinute, which featured her photo with the caption: "Clever as a monkey, Taubira finds the banana". The weekly rejected the accusation of racism, arguing that it merely used two French expressions, "the second of which - the part about the banana - is familiarly used to describe a person in good shape". The minister denounced comments of "extreme violence", denying her "belonging to the human race". The weekly's editor was sentenced to a fine of 10,000euros for its front page on 30 October 2014. The public prosecutor's office appealed against the fine, saying that it was too lenient.
Taubira has been married twice.[35] She has four children with her second husband, Roland Delannon.[35][36][37] They are divorced.[35][37] Delannon is a separatist politician who founded theDecolonization and Social Emancipation Movement; he was jailed for 18 months for planning to blow up an oil and gas facility in the 1980s.[36][37]
Media related toChristiane Taubira at Wikimedia Commons| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Minister of Justice 2012–2016 | Succeeded by |
